The job interview is at the center of recruiting. But setting one up and conducting one is, at many companies, a process stuck in days gone by. Some recruiters are spending 90 percent of their time scheduling job interviews, according to SelectSoftware Reviews.
Ninety percent!
This isn’t helping anyone. It’s not smart to have recruiters spend most of their time doing everything but recruiting. And emailing back and forth and back and forth again does little to improve the application experience for candidates.
Most importantly, hiring can’t wait. Stretching out the scheduling process means a longer time to hire. Top talent is lost, accepting offers at competitors.
That’s not the only part of the interview process in need of a change. The interviews themselves should focus on what matters to the role, not questions with little to no correlation to success on the job. Plus, results should be recorded immediately.
With Eightfold Smart Interview Scheduling, recruiters are able to align calendars, schedule interviews, and schedule reminders to both interviewers and candidates. Interviewers have access to candidate profiles on the Eightfold platform, allowing interviewers to see AI-driven insights such as AI-surfaced likely (or missing) skills relative to the job.
That last part is critical. Eightfold goes beyond the interview point solutions available today. Our AI which provides the insight to have more impactful interviews for better hiring decisions. Instead of asking where someone thinks they will be in five years, or what the best and worst thing about themselves is, you use the interview to hone in on skills needed at the company. What’s missing in someone’s skill set? What do we think the candidate probably has in terms of their capabilities, but needs to be confirmed? What do we think they’re lacking?
Global enterprises are using Smart Interview Scheduling today. This includes AirAsia, the fastest growing low-cost carrier in the world. Air Asia began using interview scheduling in 2020 despite the pandemic disruption to its airline business. Recruiting coordinators cut their time burden nearly in half, contributing greatly to the overall 60 percent rise in recruiter efficiency Eightfold Talent Acquisition is driving in the business.
Smart Interview Scheduling works for a variety of interview formats: 1:1, panel, in person, remote, different time zones, and more.
Setting up your new Eightfold Interview Scheduling solution is straightforward. No coding is required. Calendar programs are integrated. We observe global best practices for security, privacy, and compliance, so we are not accessing sensitive company information from the calendar.
Then you add your branding. You can include your logo and default contact info. You can also install styles so that the communication with candidates is fully formatted like all your other communications.
You add time information. This includes your default time zone, available interview hours, and the minimum notice period required to schedule an interview (to make sure everyone shows up!). Interview times are always converted to each person’s local time zone.
You can also set other options like whether you want to see room availability from your calendar, video conference tools, whether or not to enable the interview feedback functionality, and whether to enable candidate anonymity.
After each interview, Smart Interview Scheduling captures feedback, whether qualitative or in the form of short multiple choice questions. The technology, combined with experienced managers and recruiters doing the interviewing, finally takes the job interview to where it should be in 2021. After implementation, your recruiters just may find themselves spending 90 percent of their time doing recruiting-related work, instead of 90 percent of their time doing everything but that.
By Partha Sarathi Pati, Product Leader, and Sid Balwani, Senior Director of Product Management